Leroy B. Sheldon

LEROY B. SHELDON. One of the oldest merchants in Lyon County, in years of continuous business, is Leroy B. Sheldon of Reading, who has had a store in that village supplying general merchandise to a large community for fully thirty years. Mr. Sheldon is also vice president of the Reading State Bank and has been quite a factor in local affairs.

He comes of old American stock, the Sheldons having come from England to the New England states in colonial times. His grandfather was a native of Vermont, moved from Paulet, that state, to Chautauqua County, New York, and is buried at Fredonia, New York.

Leroy B. Sheldon was born in Chautauqua County, New York, April 27, 1858. His father, Milton B. Sheldon, born in New York State in 1828 and died in Westfield, New York, in 1891, spent nearly all his active career as a Chautauqua County farmer. In politics he is a republican. He married Clarissa Barlow, who was born in New York State in 1829 and died in Chautauqua County in 1895. The oldest of their children is Myra, wife of Walter Corbett, a furniture dealer and undertaker at Sherman, New York; Linnie is the wife of George Van Deusen, a farmer near Syracuse, New York; the third in age is Leroy B. Sheldon; H. L. Sheldon is cashier in the Watertown Bank of South Dakota; Ellen married E. A. Haines, cashier of the First National Bank of Ottawa, Kansas; Laura is the wife of a farmer at Dewittville, New York; Bertram B. and Belle are twins, the former an assistant to his older brother, Leroy, and the latter a resident of Jamestown, New York.

Mr. Sheldon attended the public schools of Chautauqua county until he was eighteen years old. His first independent service was as a teacher, and he taught district schools in his native county from 1876 to 1879. The summer of 1879 he spent on a farm, then worked in a store at Sherman, New York, a year, and for four years was in his uncle's, R. E. Sheldon, store at Sinclairville, New York.

It was in 1885 that Mr. Sheldon located at Reading, Kansas, and at that time established a general merchandise business. He now has the largest store of the village and the chief trading point for a large surrounding community. The store is on Main Street.

Mr. Sheldon has served as treasurer of his township, and for several terms has been a member of the school board. Politically he is a republican, and is affiliated with Reading Lodge No. 201 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he is a past grand. Mr. Sheldon is unmarried.

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